Consumers should ask questions about products and their marketing

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen. I love to cook. I love to eat. I love to share my love for food with others. It is no surprise then that my kitchen would be the subject of a lot of my thoughts. While stirring a homemade sauce, I find my mind wandering and my eyes settling on …

Treat OLG fairly

Are the executives and staff at Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. being treated fairly? Is part of their salary package hazard pay? The media coverage has broad-brushed OLG employees as pigs at the public trough for outrageous spending. The story has been in the headlines for weeks, a very one-sided attack on the minutia of every-day expenses. I can’t help …

Lessons learned from a basket of peaches, a bag of milk and fast food

COLUMN: Draw the line at too much of a good thing Every fall I find my mind wandering from fresh fruit to carbohydrates to prepare my body for a cold winter. This year, my joyful obsession is starting early with the unseasonable temperatures and a not so peachy experience, though my enthusiasm has been “fried” by recent advertising. This is …

There is power and magic in language, so use it responsibly

Language is often paired with words like “evoke” or “bewitch” with its ability to “cast spells” over us. It can make us laugh, cry, love, hate, run, stay, fight, give in, believe, distrust, move or stop. Yes, there is magic and power in language. There is power in what is said and what’s left unsaid. It can reveal or conceal …

Mother Nature as CEO, religious leader, jilted lover or Father Planet?

With Earth Day just passed, Mother’s Day coming, a planet with a low-grade fever and a cold economic climate, I am wondering what needs to be done to get people to take the environment more seriously within the context of a floundering economy. Economics and the environment are not mutually exclusive concepts, and both should be on our minds in …

NHL has a duty to protect: could fisticuffs on the ice lead to handcuffs?

Employers have a duty to protect: could fisticuffs in the NHL lead to “handicuffs”? Those who oppose fighting tend to do so on moral and civil grounds or legal grounds. Like matters of taste, levels of civility and morality are much more variable than I had realized, thus difficult to argue without sounding righteous or patronizing. Criminal law and employment …

There are alternatives to stimulus packages to resolve economic crisis

You catch more votes with honey. To keep the coalition at bay, and endear itself to the voters, we expect our government soon to unveil a huge stimulus package. Since such incentives are historically unproven globally to resolve economic downturns, here are a few alternatives to consider, some more tongue-in-cheek than others. The government could begin by blaming the media …

Get beautiful naturally with local, great-smelling products

Kate Campbell and Allie McKeachnie like to keep things simple. If they can’t recognize or pronounce the ingredients in a product, they typically don’t buy it. That led them to create their own line of body care products, Kate and Allie’s Beauty by Nature, in the summer of 2007. Kate told me that, “With allergies and sensitive skin, we can’t …

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Don’t reward Big Three for not knowing how to be profitable

The recent bailout of the financial industry in the United States made me uneasy. White House officials said they had little choice as they doled out $700 billion to buy up bad loans that basically shouldn’t have been made in the first place (and I thought the U. S. didn’t negotiate with hostage-takers). Hard-working entrepreneurs and corporations cringed at the …